Monday 7 July 2014

Ukraine civil war -update - 07/06/2014

Ukraine army assaults Lugansk: Airstrikes on suburbs, shelling of residential areas
Kiev's artillery attacked the city of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, witnesses and militia of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Lugansk (LNR) said. Ukrainian forces also attacked the city’s suburbs from the air.


RT,

6 July, 2014, 2014


"Ukrainian aviation launched missile strikes at Aleksandrovka, the Lugansk suburb. Ukrainian airplanes are in the skies above Lugansk. A siren is on," the press service of the Donetsk People's Republic wrote on Twitter. 



After 8 p.m. Moscow time, the confrontation between the self-defense and Ukrainian forces intensified in the suburbs of Lugansk, RIA Novosti reported.



The agency said that a heavy aircraft could be heard flying above Lugansk, after which a siren went off.
The consequences of an artillery attack on the town of Lugansk. (RIA Novosti / Valeriy Melnikov)
The consequences of an artillery attack on the town of Lugansk. (RIA Novosti / Valeriy Melnikov)


In general, in the evening hours the situation within the city was calm. Earlier in the day Lugansk mayor addressed its citizens and asked them not to leave their homes.

One civilian was reportedly killed in the morning attacks, four more people injured.

Later in the day, following the air strikes, an air raid alert was heard in Lugansk, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The attack happened the same day Kiev said it would not bombard armed groups in Lugansk and Donetsk from the air. "The tactics of the Ukrainian Army, the National Guard and the Border Service are such that massive bombardment of residential areas is excluded," Andrey Lysenko, spokesman of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said on Sunday
The body of a local resident killed in the artillery attack on the town of Lugansk. (RIA Novosti / Valeriy Melnikov)
The body of a local resident killed in the artillery attack on the town of Lugansk. (RIA Novosti / Valeriy Melnikov)


Air strikes and heavy artillery will target only convoys outside cities, he added.

"Several buildings are burning in the city, some people have been injured, there are a lot of ambulances in the streets,” militia representatives told Itar-Tass on Sunday, adding that locals rushed to bomb shelters. Witnesses say the battery factory was hit, which is close to a bus terminal.

Grad rocket launchers may have been used in the attack, the sources from the Lugansk People’s Republic said..
Ukrainian forces confirmed the shelling of the areas near the Lugansk railway and bus stations on Sunday afternoon, but blamed it on the opposing self-defense forces.

"I presume the fire was really intense as it reached the city center from the outskirts. I heard at least five or six explosions," Anton Bukhalo, a journalist from Lugansk, told RT. He added that people were trying to leave the city.

A RIA-Novosti journalist also reported the sound of artillery and gunfire in Lugansk on Sunday.

Ukrainian forces hit a building in the city center and "huge black smoke" was seen in the area, an eyewitness from Lugansk told RT via Skype. He added that a warehouse was burning.

"I can often hear explosions or shooting. I can hear it every five to ten minutes," said the man, who is currently in the eastern part of Lugansk.

Donetsk militia confirm leaving stronghold cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk

Several explosions were reportedly heard in the Lugansk airport area, and the movement of military equipment was observed in the town of Schastie, near Lugansk.

The previous night mortar shelling took place near the Lugansk airport, but there are no further reports of casualties so far.

On Saturday, the health minister of the Lugansk People’s Republic said at least 80 people had been treated in Lugansk hospitals after a day of bombing and gunfire from Ukrainian forces. He said 56 of the injured were civilians.

On Sunday in Lugansk city center, people were collecting signatures for an appeal to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Locals want to ask the UN to stop Kiev's aggression towards civilians, they said.

The Ukrainian army will besiege the cities of Lugansk and Donetsk in the country's east, in an attempt to make the self-defense forces lay down arms, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council official told Ukrainian Inter TV channel on Sunday.

"The main strategic plan of the Ukrainian army is to besiege Lugansk and Donetsk," Mikhail Koval, deputy secretary of the Council said. Such measures will force the local "separatists" to lay down arms, he added

Kiev's bloody eastern Ukraine campaign LIVE UPDATES


Fighting is continuing between Kiev and anti-government troops in southeastern Ukraine as the cease-fire expired on Monday evening. Russia and the EU have called to prolong the truce and start the third round of negotiations.


Monday, July 7
01:00 GMT:
Police are investigating a shooting in Kiev's Maidan square among pro-Kiev activists that have resulted in three deaths, Unian reports.


"Today, at about midnight a conflict between persons calling themselves Maidan self-defense activists escalated into a gunfight on the square,” the agency cites a police source. One other person has received wounds to his stomach and is now in a hospital.

В Киеве сейчас на - нападение неизвестных, перестрелка. Трое погибших. Кого-то ловят какие-то люди. Толком ничего не понятно




Sunday, July 6
21:05 GMT:
Tripartite contact group of senior representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE expressed the need to urgently take concrete measures for the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian domestic crisis, and to hold the next round of consultations as soon as possible.


On the basis of President Poroshenko’s Peace Plan and of the Joint Declaration of four Foreign Ministers adopted in Berlin on July 2, 2014, the Contact Group underlined that it was a matter of urgency to make concrete progress towards a peaceful settlement of the crisis,” the OSCE said in a statementfollowing the meeting in Kiev.


20:43 GMT:
Around 2,000 protesters gathered in the center of Donetsk, the citadel of the anti-Kiev struggle in the east of Ukraine, to hold a rally against the Kiev authorities.

20:36 GMT:
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has announced that under President Poroshenko's ordershumanitarian corridors” have been opened in eastern Ukraine amid the ongoing offensive against self-defense militia and airstrikes near Lugansk.

It is a priority that civilians of Slavyansk and Kramatorks speedily receive what is needed for every Ukrainian citizen: care of oneself, in this situation, that water and electricity returns to Slavyansk, for the television to start working,” Avakov said, Itar-Tass reports. Earlier, after militia left Slavyansk and Kramatorsk on Saturday, Poroshenko ordered that all civilian infrastructure destroyed by months of government shelling should be rebuilt within a day.”

19:49 GMT:
Kiev authorities are arresting all men aged between 25 and 35 years old in the city of Slavyansk, Oleg Tsarev of the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics told Rossiya 24 TV. The state security forces are detaining all men in the age gap, without investigating whether they have joined the self-defense forces or not.
"Over night they arrested all police officers and moved them out of town. Now they are arresting all guys from 25 to 35 years old, and it doesn't matter whether they've touched weapons or not. Searches are being conducted. They’re trying to figure out who helped feeding the injured," Tsarev said.

19:31 GMT:
The Ukrainian army occupied several cities and towns in the country's east over the weekend, according to a report from the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council. Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka and Konstantinovka in the Donetsk region were said to have been taken over by Kiev. Ukraine state flags were raised above the city council buildings there, Council spokesman Andrey Lysenko said on Sunday.
The fifth town - Artyomovsk - was added to the list in a Defense Ministry report to Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko.
Poroshenko has ordered the Defense Minister Valery Geletey to start recovery works on the infrastructure in the towns and provide the delivery of food and water to the locals, the presidential press-service reported.
18:59 GMT:
The Ukrainian army will besiege the cities of Lugansk and Donetsk in the country's east, in an attempt to make the self-defense forces lay down arms, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council official told Ukrainian Inter TV channel on Sunday.
"The main strategic plan of the Ukrainian army is to besiege Lugansk and Donetsk," Mikhail Koval, deputy secretary of the Council said. Such measures will force the local "separatists" to lay down arms, he added.

18:14 GMT:

"Ukrainian aviation launched missile strikes at Aleksandrovka, the Lugansk suburb. Ukrainian airplanes are in the skies above Lugansk. A siren is on," press service of the Donetsk People's Republic wrote on Twitter.

The attack was launched the same day Kiev said it would not bombard armed groups in Lugansk and Donetsk from the air. "The tactics of the Ukrainian Army, the National Guard and the Border Service are such that massive bombardment of residential areas is excluded," Andrey Lysenko, spokesman of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said on Sunday.

17:22 GMT:
Two refugees - a woman and a girl - were injured while fleeing their hometown of Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine.
A convoy of the self-defense forces was moving away from the towns of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, with some refugee families joining the military convoy.
"Some drivers forgot the black-out order and had their headlights on. We were located by the enemy, who fired at us with Grad rocket launchers, hitting the convoy’s tail," a Donetsk People's Republic representative told RIA Novosti.

16:46 GMT:
Some 30 refugees - mostly women and children - arrived in the city of Donetsk on Sunday. People had to flee their hometown of Kramatorsk, where they "had to walk several kilometers under gunfire to get water to give to the children," one woman said.

Refugees are now awaiting temporary accommodation. Living a normal everyday life was impossible while hiding in Kramatorsk bomb shelters, a woman said: "
We couldn't even go home to take a shower, to feed our children, to take food for ourselves. They don't give us any money, no child support, no salaries. We don't even have jobs anymore... Look at us, what kind of separatists are we?"





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